Never Let Your Company Start A Community

A community shouldn’t be run by a company. Every community should be run from a named person within the company.

The Coca Cola community shouldn’t be founded by someone named “Cola Cola HQ”. It should be founded by “Mark Smith - VP of Online Marketing at Coca Cola”. He runs the show. You can e-mail him at Marksmith@cocacola.com.

There are two benefits here. The first benefit is internal. It sends a strong internal message. Someone has responsibility. Someone’s name and eternal online reputation are on the line. You’re more motivated to build a community if you’re listed as the founder. It also means more than one person from the same company can participate (without using the same account!).

The second benefit is external. It’s hard to be friends with Mr. Coca Cola. You can’t have human to human conversations with a non-human. This is what communities are all about. You want to talk to real people. The people running your community should have names and e-mail addresses, hopefully phone numbers too.

I don't believe in anonymity on the internet. If you do it, they do it and nobody knows who anyone is. It's part of a thinking that states the internet is a place we go to, rather than a process we go through. We should act the same online as we would meeting in person.

In 8 years I've never had a problem giving my full name. Do you you get some abuse? Yes, but none more than every community manager gets. Certainly not more than the poor chaps from customer service.

But the chances of it going this far are remarkably slim. In 8 years I've never had a problem with using my own name in a community, nor heard of any community manager that has been in any danger.

Dell handles this in a similar matter as you suggest with regards to Twitter. If you search for Dell people on Twitter, you find:

@JohnatDell
@RichardatDell
@LionelatDell

And so on and so forth. That way, there is a personal connection as you suggest and also a direct connection to the brand they represent.

I agree with you about anonymity, by the way. I have long advocated that community managers should not be afraid to leave their full name out there. In fact, I go completely in the opposite direction. See my sig below. Even when I'm engaging detractors elsewhere in the blogosphere with people who are crying for my head, I'll leave my contact info out there with an invite for anyone to contact me offline. Having it out there -- and offering anyone the chance to use it -- makes you a real person instead of a mere cipher.

After all, it's hard for people to make a connection or be upset with "Mary Jones". It's all too easy for them to be upset with "Large Anonymous Corporation".

You hit the nail with with this one Rich. People are more comfortable in relating to other people, than relating to a company. For example; we always relate to "people" in other companies as "I got a contact at XYZ". It's the people who hold the community together.

A similar idea is presented by Rohit Bhargava in his book "Personality Not Included". Although he doesn't talk about communities in particular; what he says is every brand should posses a "human face" for customers to relate with. People don't want to engage with faceless corporations anymore!

No more so than an account manager can leave with your biggest clients. The solution is two fold. Either hire the best and do what it takes to keep them. Or have as many staff as possible engaging in the community. One staff member leaving shouldn't be a problem.

I absolutely agree people prefer to relate to other people, than a company, no argument there.

In my case I'm talking Mods not CM (just to be clear). So I can handle abuse but my Moderators are volunteers so I like to limit the chances of abuse, especially IRL. And it does sometimes happen with our community.

With such a large community (and small country population wise) there's every chance your child's school teacher or the local librarian could look you up and find out personal information from your previous posts. As such they don't like to disclose much. I can see their might be some benefits, but for years preceding my role it was customary to only use your username and perhaps first name.

Rich can you see that it would be any different with family-orientated - or say relationships - communities?